underwater archaeology in the maya highlands

Underwater Archaeology in the Maya Highlands

At the bottoln of a Guatemalan lake skin di()ers hu()efound objects

sacrificed to the lake spirits as early as 2,500 years ago. These

finds help trnce the history of a little-known branch of the Maya

When we hear the word "Maya," we usually think of the impressive flat-topped pyramids which

archaeologists have cleared from the rain forest of Guatemala and southern Mexico. Or we may think of a second Maya area farther to the north on the plain of Yucatan, where the Spaniards pillaged the cities built by the ancestors of the present Indian inhabitants. Run your finger down the map from Yucatan southward across the rain forest and you come to a little-known third center of Maya civilization. This center lies in the Sierra Madre, which runs along the Pacific coast of Guatemala and of the Mexican province of Chiapas. Here in the cool highlands west of Guatemala City live nearly four million Mava In-

dians, cousins of the more familiar northern lowland tribes. In pre·Columbian times these highland Maya comprised one of the Western Hemisphere's great civilized states. Less advanced than the northerners (they made Ii ttle use of the 365-day calendar, hieroglyphic writing and the corbelled arch), they nonetheless possessed a rich cultural tradition dating from about 1000 B.C. Today this tradition is yielding its history to an unusual kind of archaeology.

For the past few years the archaeology of the Maya highlands has proceeded on a modest scale. The ancient religious center of Kaminaljuyu and a number of other sites have been excavated, but for the most part the diggings have managed to stay out of the public eye.

SKIN DIVER in this photograph, wearing an aqualung, has just surfaced with two Maya

incense hurners from Lake Amatitlan in highland Guatemala. He is Jorge Samayoa, one

of the lake's many amateur s!,ol'tsmen-turned-al'chaeologists cooperating with the authol'.

100

The reasons for this are twofold. First, the highland Maya rarely built in stone. Lacking the soft limestone of Yucatan, or metal tools with which to hew their own hard igneous rock, the highland architects resorted to sun-dried earth, adobe and plaster-materials that have crumbled with the passage of ti�e and the tilling of the soil. Today every highland palace and temple has collapsed into a grassy mound, and smaller structures have almost vanished beneath the fields of Indian corn.

Second, there is none of that specious glamour that surrounds archaeological research in inaccessible places. Almost without exception the highland sites lie on the outskirts of modern towns, close to highways, railroads and all the comforts of civilization. No expeditions need be outfitted. There is none of the ro- \

mantic austerity of camp life. The rainforest pyramids are another matter. Set in the deepest jungle, unseen for 1,000 years save by wandering chicle-gatherers and primitive Lacandon-Maya hunting bands, their appeal to the imagination is undeniable. Small wonder that the lowland Maya have eclipsed the fame of their highland relatives!

But every dog has its day, and the highland Maya have at last begun to attract attention. Curiously this has been brought about not by the archaeologist's spade but by modern techniques of free diving. By 1954 the new sport of aqualung diving had become an international pastime, and in that year a group of amateur divers began to probe the waters of Guatemala's Lake Amatitlan in search

© 1959 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC

LAKE AMATITLAN, set among volcanic peaks, is shown in this

aerial photograph. From its western, or lower, basin (upper left)

divers have recovered Maya offerings dating from about 500 B.C.

Temple sites 011 the shore date from 1000 B.C. to 1500 A.D.

10 1


of fishing grounds. In April, 1955, one of these diving enthusiasts, Manfred Topke, retrieved an interesting archaeological specimen from the bottom of the lake. It was the first of more than 600 intact pottery vessels, incense burners and stone sculptures discovered by the skin divers.

In the summer of 1957, when the news of these finds reached me, I was excavating in the highlands with a group af students from the summer school of San Carlos University. I wasted no time in getting in touch with the skin divers and examining their collections. With their help I mapped out a plan for a systematic survey of the lake bottom and shore. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, inventor of the aqualung, had initiated underwater archaeology five years before with his famous exploration of a Greek shipwreck near Marseilles. Since then much of the Mediterranean and Danish coast had been explored by skin divers, but this was to be one of the first such adventures in the Americas.

To be sure, the discovery of archaeological specimens in Lake Amatitlan came as no great surprise. As early as

the mid-19th century travelers to Guatemala had made mention of apparently ancient pottery vessels found along the lake shore and in its shallow waters. Eduard SeIer, a noted German archaeologist, visited the lake in 1896 and described "curious spiked vessels occasionally decorated with maguey-like leaf decorations." A later visitor, Marshall Saville of the Heye Foundation in New York, not only witnessed the recovery of pottery vessels from the lake by fishermen but also located two archaeological sites on the lake shore. During the 1940s members of the Carnegie Institution Guatemalan research team and I investigated and mapped these sites and others in the lake area. No one was aware, however, of the immense quantity and diversity of the underwater material.

�ke Amatitlan is a beautiful resort 17 miles south of Guatemala City on

the highway from the capital to the Pacific seaport of San Jose. Its altitude is some 4,000 feet. Attractive week-end cottages belonging to the country's wealthier citizens line the shore, and in

good weather the lake sees a good deal of swimming, boating and water-skiing. Two lakeside hotels feature thermal baths, said to be beneficial for arthritis and rheumatism. A short distance from the lake shore is the colonial town of San Juan Amatitlan, whose 6,000 permanent residents are mostly "Ladinos" of mixed Spanish and Pokomam-Maya ancestry. Spectacular lava hills surround the lake. In certain areas sulfurous water hot enough to boil an egg bubbles from the lake bottom or along the shore. Geysers appear and disappear erratically at various locations on the south side of the lake. The lake derives its name from the Amate tree (Ficus momceae), which abounds on the southern shore.

The first task of our group was to prepare accurate maps of the lake. This we did with the aid of aerial photographs from the Guatemalan Bureau of Cartography plus some up-to-date bathymetric maps. We now tried to locate the exact sites of all underwater discoveries made by local skin divers since 1955. The upper basin of the lake is joined to the lower basin by a narrow channel only six feet in depth, crossed by a railroad

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES at Lake Amatitlan include lake-bot·

tom deposits of offerings (numbered 1 through 6) and lake-shore

sites of ancient groups of buildings (lettered A through D2). The

colored contours indicate the depth of the lake in meters; the black

contours, the height of the land above sea level in meters. In both

map and plan views on page 106 and 108 north is at the top.

102


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bridge [see map on page 102]. Since the Guatemalan divers reported that there was nothing to be found in the upper baSin, we concentrated our efforts in the lower. The depth of this portion of the lake varies from 10 to 130 feet. Nearly 600 archaeological specimens in the divers' and other private collections were cleaned, photographed, described and measured. Each piece was catalogued according to its original location beneath the waters of the lake. We found that most of the material came from nine underwater deposits, seven of them near hot springs off the south shore and the other two in deeper water off the north shore. Fortunately for us the divers had made their collections with considerable care. They had carried depth gauges and taken accurate notes, numbering the specimens according to their original 10-cation. The specimens consisted of offering bowls, spiked vessels and incense burners. They ranged from a few inches to four and one-half feet in height. The incense burners were double-chambered or three-pronged; many bore unusual designs: cacao trees and pods, papaya fruits and flowers, quetzal birds, jaguar heads, spider monkeys, snakes, lizards, bats and even human skulls-motifs hitherto rare or unknown in the highland Maya area. Among the many Maya gods represented were the rain god, Chac or Tlaloc; the jaguar god; the sun god; Eecatl, the wind god (a form of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent); Xipe Totec, a fertility god; and the death god. There were also beautifully executed human heads peering from the jaws of animals and monsters and the beaks of birds.

It soon became apparent that certain types of vessel and design motif were restricted to particular underwater localities. This raised the intriguing possibility that each underwater deposit might represent a different time period. The location of the deposits in relation to the shore line strongly suggested that the specimens had been thrown into the la!(e as offerings, probably to the lake or water gods. To confirm the time selluence of the sites it was necessary to reinvestigate all the archaeological sites on the shore. During the summers of 1957 and 1958, with the help of students from the San Carlos University summer school, the mapping and test excavations of all five archaeological sites on the southern shore were completed.

Site B (Contreras), the oldest lakeshore site, shows an occupation from

the beginning to the end of the

Maya Pre-Classic Period (about 1000 B.C. to 200 A.D.). It consists of five mounds located 300 yards from the shore behind the Contreras Yacht Club [see bottom illustration on next page]. Since Contreras lies only a few feet above the level of the modern lake, we can assume that the water level has not risen for at least 2,000 years.

Site C (Mejicanos) consists of four mounds, also at or a little above lake level. The site occupies a small inlet valley, hemmed in on three sides by steep mountains which still show traces of preColumbian agricultural terracing. The mounds have been almost obliterated by modern corn cultivation and the use of their material for roads, but their remains are still distinguishable. They were constructed of stone and earth and were probably faced with adobe. Fragments of pottery collected from the site indicate that the major occupation of Mejicanos was during the Early Classic Period (200 to 600 A.D.).

Considerably larger is Site A (AmatitIan), located on higher ground overlooking the west end of the lake. Retreat to higher and more easily defensible positions characterized Maya behavior during periods of disturbance, so we need not infer a rise in the lake level. The site comprises buildings laid out in orderly fashion around aligned plazas. There are about 25 mounds of various sizes, two of them ancient ball courts. Extensive artificial terracing is still in evidence on the sides of the promontory. Many of the structures are faced with masonry of roughly cut stones and some with wellcut and dressed blocks. Several test pits and surface specimens indicate that the site was occupied during the entire Classic Period (200 to 1000 A.D.) .

Two other sites, Contreras Alto (Site Dl) and Los Jicaques (Site D2), were discovered on the slopes some 500 feet higher than Site B. Both of these sites must have been quite extensive, each with 10 to 15 large mounds and handsomely cut stone masonry. Although the majority of the pottery collected from the two sites dates back to the late PreClassic and Classic periods, enough Post· Classic pottery was found on the surface to indicate the possibility that this area was still inhabited at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1524 A.D. One, or both of the sites may represent the longsearched-for ruins of "Tzacualpal," indicated on a map made in 1690 by the Guatemalan historian Francisco de Fuentes y Guzman.

Our excitement was great when our records of the specimens brought up by

105


SITE A (AMATITLAN), the largest lake-shore site, dates from the Classic Period (200 to

lono A_I).! _ The buildings reconstrueted here include two ban courts (stippled rectangles)_

SITE B (CONTRERAS) is the oldest site, dating from the Pre-Classic Period (about 1000

B_C. to 200 A_D.). It stands near the south shore of Lake Amatitlan, 300 yards above the

Contreras Yacht Club (hatched buildings). Modern roads and a railroad crOss the area.

106

divers showed that there was a definite correlation between the type and age of the underwater specimens and those found at the nearest archaeological site on the shore. This correlation was confirmed by our student divers, who made many descents to each of the nine underwater deposits. The underwater specimens fall into an orderly sequence which corroborates our time-scale for the sites on the shore; we now have a record of the fact that the lake area had been continuously inhabited for nearly 3,000 years. Thus the region, though not comparable in architectural grandeur to Kaminaljuyu, the largest of the highland Maya sites, has a rich and full archaeological record. On the basis of this record I shall now attempt to reconstruct the history of the lake area.

\Vhile the archaeological record does not begin before about 1000 B.C.,

we can assume that prior to this time wandering Maya groups entered the highlands from the Pacific-coast area, and settled in more or less stable communities in the many fertile mountain valleys. Soon the domestication of corn and beans made it possible for these communities to set aside their food surplus for times of scarcity; this eased the tremendous pressure of keeping alive from one day to another. Increasing leisure made it possible and practical for members of the communities to manufacture objects of artistic and utilitarian value. Their various kinds of pottery and stone implements provide the first tangible chapter of prehistory. While archaeological data indicate a large population in the nearby Valley of . Guatemala, no permanent structures remain to document this earliest period at the lake. However, utensils and figurines from the Contreras site suggest that a settlement of some sort must have existed. The main occupations of these first settlers, as in later times, were fishing, hunting and farming. Religious ideas from the ceremonial center of Kaminaljuyu reached this community around 1000 B.C., attested by the beginning of mound building. The gods became ever more important as men depended upon them to bless and protect their corn and bean plots. Gradually the ritual magic practiced by individuals gave way to organized religious offerings and .ceremonies. Religion was probably the concern of the menfolk, who erected buildings and monuments and carved sculptures in honor of their gods or their dead. The religion at this time was unsophisticated in concept, being entirely animistic; every aspect of nature had its spiritual


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SITE C (MEJICANOS) belongs to the Early Classic Period (200 to 600 A.D.). Shown here

are offerings from Site C carried under water by lava flow in which they were embedded.

SITES Dl AND D2, referred to as Contreras Alto and Los Jicaqnes, are hillside settlements

probably inhabited until the time of the Spanish conqnest. One or both may be the "lost"

city of Tzacualpal shown on an old colonial map. A modern power line crosses Site D2.

108

counterpart. It is easy to see why the sulfurous springs and geysers on the southern shore of Lake Amatitlan would be awe-inspiring to these pre-Columbians. This awe, combined with fear of the four-peaked active volcano Pacaya overlooking the lake, could easily have made men believe that particularly powerful spirits or gods dwelt in the area. By about 500 B.C. it was customary to cast offerings into the lake waters to appease the gods. But offerings at this time were neither as specialized nor as abundant as those in later periods.

Apparently the Contreras site was abandoned by the beginning of the Early Classic Period, sometime around 200 A.D. Two new ceremonial centers were then established, one at Mejicanos, adjacent to the hot springs, and the other at Contreras Alto on the nearby hill slopes. The latter site, of considerable size, may indicate a growing population that needed to build and cultivate the surrounding agricultural terraces. Mejicanos, with its four small mounds on the shore, must have served only as a shrine for pilgrims, who by now came in droves, bringing rich and varied offerings to the water gods. The number and variety of specimens from the under· water deposits of Lavaderes nearby suggest that by this time the lake had become a pilgrimage center for highlanders from far and near.

periodic eruptions of the volcano Pacaya may also have prompted

some offerings. Our divers found bowls in groups of four or five, standing erect and occasionally embedded in lava on the lake floor. This could only mean that to placate the angry gods residing in the volcano these objects had been placed in lava flows near the shore and were thus carried into the lake. Major eruptions, probably accompanied by earthquakes, may have prompted the more extravagant offerings, including human sacrifices. One of our divers recovered at Lavaderes a brown-black jar with a modeled Tlaloc face on the neck. It was unusually heavy and upon investigation turned out to contain liquid mercury. After further cleaning we found in it fragments of cinnabar and graphite and nearly 400 ceremonially smashed fragments of jade ear-spools, the most treasured jewelry of the Maya.

Another diver brought up an offering bowl containing a cranium, apparently of a woman somewhere between 16 and 25 years old. The cranium still showed faint traces of red ocher. Human sacrifice, or at least offerings of bodies of the dead, was probably not an uncommon


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OFFERINGS found at the bottom of the lake include censer covers shaped like a jaguar

!top) and a Mexican god (middle), either the "Old Fire God" or Quetzalcoatl. At bottom

is a young woman's ocher-stained cranium in a bowl, possible evidence of human sacrifice.

110

practice among the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Amatitlan region. Frequent representation of Xipe Totec, a god associated with human sacriRce, and many incense burners depicting jaguars and human skulls, strengthen the possibility that this unsavory practice had entered religious ritual by the Classic Period (200-1000 A.D.). Similar evidence of human sacriRce is abundant among the northern Maya. All of the specimens found from this period bespeak the religious and artistic influence of nearby Kaminaljuyu and even of Teotihuacan in central Mexico.

At the end of the Classic and during the following Post-Classic period (1000-1500 A.D.) two more large population centers had come into prominence, that of the hilltop sites Amatitlan (Site A) and Los Jicayues (Site D2). The number of buildings and ball courts at these sites suggests that they were not merelv ceremonial centers but also permanent residences, at least for the governing classes. \lVe have yet to determine whether they were cities in the true sense. We also yuestion whether the inhabitants of these sites were completely Maya in origin, since this is the time when Nahuat-speaking Pipil and Toltec groups from Mexico began to inRltrate the highlands. According to the Account Book of the Town of San Juan Amatitlan, 1559-1562, an important document in the Smithsonian Institution, the town was inhabited shortly after the Spanish conquest both by people who spoke Pocomam-Maya and by others who spoke Nahuat. The Pipil and Toltec preference for spiked vessels and the representation of speech scrolls, jaguars, spider monkeys, human skulls and intricate vines and flowers can be seen in many late Classic and Post-Classic objects recovered from the lake bottom, indicating that these Mexican groups were present. Amatitlan and Los Jicayues must have been flourishing at the time of the Spanish conquest of Guatemala in 1524, for the historian Fuentes y Guzman included them on his map made in 1690. One matter not yet established is whether Pipil, Toltec and Maya inhabitants shared the same settlements or merely lived as friendly neighbors.

Unfortunately we do not know much of colonial times at the lake. Our best documents are the writings of an enterprising English Dominican friar, Thomas Gage, a parish priest of San Juan AmatitIan during the years 1635-36. According to Brother Thomas, Amatitlan was by then a prosperous commercial cent�r surrounded by numerous large sugar plantations. Commoners and gentry


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INCENSE BURNER found in the lake is of the "three·pronged" variety. The decoration

depicts a finely molded Maya face looking out through the beak of an unidentified bird.

from the capital still came there to bathe and take the waters, or to fish or row about the lake in boats or canoas.

Eke Amatitlan still plays a mystical role in the beliefs of present-day

highland Maya Indians and Ladinos. The majestic stone church on the town plaza of San Juan Amatitlan is the home of an elaborately carved Spanish colonial wooden figure of the Santo Nino de Amatitlan, acclaimed for its miraculous healing powers. According to local legend, similar magical powers were once attributed to a carved stone idol called Jefe Dios which in pre-Columbian days stood on a cliff on the north shore of the lake. One night during the 17th century, the story goes, there was a great rumbling in the earth accompanied by a severe hailstorm, and the stone idol sank beneath the waters of the lake. The following morning devout visitors to the "pagan" shrine of J efe Dios found in its place the charming wooden statue of the Santo Nino (Christ Child), and with

elaborate ceremonies it was removed to the church on the town plaza.

Ever since then on May 3, the day of the Festival of the Cross, devout pilgrims from all parts of the Republic of Guatemala come to the Fiesta of AmatitIan. The little wooden figure of the Christ Child is borne from the church in a magnificent religiOUS procession across the lake to the spot where legend places its miraculous appearance. Hundreds of gaily painted boats and canoes follow the statue on its journey; flowers and fruits are thrown into the lake by the pilgrims. It would seem that this modern Christian festival is a survival of ancient Maya lake rituals. In it we can see another example of the persistence of human ideas. The pre-Columbian belief that powerful spirits inhabited Lake Amatitlan, and with it the desire to pIa· cate these spirits, has survived virtually unchanged over. a period of 3,000 years. It has managed to withstand or incorporate all foreign religious influences, including Christianity.

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ment, and components that can meet

uncommon requirements of precision,

strength, and reliability under the most

severe environmental conditions. The com

bination of engineering, metallurgical and

manufacturing competence represented in

the $160,000,000 per year activities of the

T APCO Group provides an integrated capa

bility of unusual effectiveness for the

design and manufacture of such products.

i.� Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc.

114

MAIN OFFICES CLEVELAND 17. OHIO LOS ANGELES 45. CALIFORNIA

Four·stage turbine wheel

100,000 rpm turbine· driven alternator

Missile gyro ground test unit

Jet engine case assembly


, �

MICROWAVE DEVICE NOISE FIGURE. What it

means, how to measure it, automatic noise figure re

cording, new meters and noise sources.

MEASURING DC VOLTAGES DOWN TO 1 JJ.V.

New techniques, new instruments permit direct read

ings of extremely small voltages.

TESTING QUARTZ PLATES FOR 5 x 10-8 WEEK

ACCURACY in new lOMe electronic counter.

"NO-CONNECTION" MEASUREMENTS OF DC

CURRENTS. New milliammeter approach requires no

soldering; doesn't load circuit.

AUTOMATIC PRINTED RECORDS FROM DIGITAL

VOLTMETERS; straightforward method of recording;

new equipment available.

YOURS WITHOUT CHARGE FROM r!jJ The rtjJ Journal, reporting throughout the year on measuring developments in all spectra, is sent without

charge to engineers in electronics and allied fields. Simply write:

EDITOR, Hewlett-Packard Journal 5222 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, California

� Complete Coverage in Electronic Test Instruments

, ------------------------------ .. '

I ,

115


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